Strike Survival TV Club: Cupid, "Hung Jury"

Hey, they can't always be winners. Brief spoilers for the "Hung Jury" episode of "Cupid" coming up just as soon as I get some clean towels...

Once upon a time, there was a play called "12 Angry Men," which then became a TV movie, then a theatrical movie, and then the inspiration for episodes of dozens (if not hundreds) of TV shows of every format and tone. There's a reason you see the "12 Angry Men" riff so often: it's cheap and easy to pull off, as it often requires only a single set. In fact, before I get to discussing the episode proper, I'm going to go straight to Rob Remembers, where Rob Thomas, "Cupid" creator (past and, hopefully, future) offers some behind the scenes insight into each episode. Rob's description of how "Hung Jury" came to be doesn't sound too dissimilar to the origins of all the other "12 Angry Men" homages:

"Hung Jury" and the upcoming "Bachelorette Party" were the lowlights of the season. Both were the indirect result of the network removing the showrunners who had been brought in to oversee CUPID. We had, in essence, split the episodes in half. Ron and Jeff were spearheading some of the episodes, and I was handling the others. Both of these episodes were supposed to be Ron and Jeff's, but once they were removed, they landed on my plate with very little time to whip them into shape.

Hung Jury was written from scratch. We needed a bottle episode -- an episode that shoots primarily in one location. Bottle shows save time and money, and the show had been growing increasingly into the red. It was broken and written in a couple of days with each writer that remained on the staff taking one act. It's the fastest way, but generally not the best way, to write an episode.

Of some note, the guest star, Brian Baker, was the reader working in the casting office in Chicago who would run lines with auditioning actors. We ended up liking him so much, we cast him as the romantic lead. He later came into much greater fame as the hangdog SPRINT spokesperson.

I remained convinced that I could handle a 12 Angry Men-style bottle episode, but I ultimately proved myself wrong by attempting it on Veronica Mars and failing once again. I am unilaterally banning myself from any more attempts at a bottle episode in a jury room.

And the thing is, I didn't need Rob to explain this to me, because the slapped-together nature of "Hung Jury" is so obvious. There are some decent one-liners here and there, and some nice guest work by the aforementioned Brian Baker and Kim "Tootie" Fields, but there's no there there. I was bored -- so bored that I'm going to move straight to the bullet points, cleanse the palate, and get ready to write about the much more interesting "A Great Personality" later in the week. So, some other thoughts on "Hung Jury":

• This is yet another instance of Claire sometimes being smarter about relationships than Trevor. He sees Teresa the artist and Shawn the guitarist flirting (and, no doubt, notices they're the only black people on the jury) and assumes they could be one of his matches. He's so pro-emotion and anti-intellect that he can't see how Teresa and Clark's bickering over grammar and linguistics marks them as the more promising duo, but Claire sees it.
  (That also raises the question of whether Trevor gets credit for this match. While he technicaly enabled it by dragging out the jury deliberations, this was largely Claire's match. There's a discussion in the next episode of how many matches Trevor's made already; I'll have to go back and do the math.)
• In an episode full of rushed elements, Champ's sidewalk Santa story is especially pointless, though there's a nice "Gift of the Magi" moment at the very end where Trevor gives him a Gameboy cartridge for Christmas, not realizing that Champ gave his Gameboy to the homeless kid who kicked the cans.
• I did enjoy all the comedy about the sleeping arrangements, particularly the odd, helium-inflected voice Trevor used to wake up Clark. On the other hand, Trevor and Claire's debate about sleeping head to toe comes three years after "Seinfeld" did the same joke.
• So the albino comic book geek really was ripping off those kids with the platinum cards, yet was somehow overcome with the Christmas spirit enough to give it all away to charity? Huh.
  

Up next: "A Great Personality," with Marcia Brady lookalike (and Mrs. Ben Stiller) Christine Taylor trying to find a guy who will love her for her mind. You can see it here, here, here, here and here.

What did everybody else think?